The following day a hunting party prevented the intended explanation in the morning; and when they returned to dinner, a neighbouring gentleman, who invited himself to Oak Grove, was of the party. This was squire Blossom, whose father, a very great farmer near Richmond, had acquired a considerable property by speculating in corn and cattle, and by horse-dealing; and his fortune being more than doubled by the death of a brother, an opulent manufacturer: a short time before he had died, leaving to this his only child, an estate of two thousand pounds a year. This youth having been intended by his father for following his own footsteps, had received little education, except so far as related to rearing horses, and disposing of them to the best advantage. In this last branch he, though only six and twenty, had already attained such skill that he could over-reach colonel O’Blackleg himself, and was fast adding to his fortune. He, like his father, was also a skilful corn-dealer and grazier. Acquing his money with great ease, though not liberal to other persons, he was not sparing in what ministered to his own pleasures; being a fresh-coloured strapping fellow, he was a successful gallant in the country; and young as he was, was a kind of a patriarch. This person having neither birth, abilities, or any other source of distinction but his riches and his vices, considered money as the first constituent of eminence, and next to that the deception of female credulity. Blossom had frequently seen Maria Mortimer, and though without taste, feeling, or comprehension to do justice to many of her charms, yet from sentiments purely animal, he regarded her as a very desirable object. The fortune of Mr. Mortimer he well knew was considerably inferior to his own, and as he had several children, the portion of his daughters could not be great. He himself was determined not to marry but merely as a matter of convenience, and had in his eye the only child of an opulent button-maker of Sheffield. This fellow had the presumptuous wickedness to conceive dishonourable intentions towards the virtuous and elevated Maria. But, though not without courage in rencounters of wrestling, cudgel-playing, or boxing, he was no friend to sword and pistol, which he well knew such an attempt would immediately raise against him from Maria’s brother, who was brave, intrepid, and high spirited. Knowing, however, that John was soon to leave the country, he determined to execute his nefarious design, when its object should, he conceived, be less guarded. He therefore had often visited Oak Grove. The father and brother, though they had no suspicion of his real designs, yet did not much approve of his attention to Maria, and were not so sordid as to desire, for the sake of mere fortune, that she should sacrifice herself to a man whom she did and must despise. Maria, from whom he had not completely concealed his real design, regarded him with contempt and indignation;